Wednesday, September 19, 2012

The Worst Successful Rock Band in History. This Has Been Proven Scientifically.

Okay, I'm only posting this because Grand Funk Railroad came up in our recent discussion's about Carly Rae Jepsen and Colbie Caillat, but I've been meaning to get the following sentiments off my chest for what seems like years.

But first -- the aforementioned Grand Funk Railroad. Covering "Gimme Shelter" in 1971.

Seriously -- listen to this under the headphones. And then demand combat pay for the experience.

And before anybody makes the point, I will concede that once Todd Rundgren got his hands on these clowns, they became listenable and/or entertaining.

In small doses.

But if you like the power trio version, there's no hope for you. None.

Aw c'mon. They weren't that bad. It was that kind of music for the time. Hey, they were popular, made some dough. More than I could say for a lot of us.

I guess there's no hope for me. I actually saw them twice at the Garden way back with cronies who liked them too. Once with Freddie King opening, the second with Humble Pie, Clem Clempson on Lead Guitar.

In a short lived band I was in years ago, early/mid 90's, did a cover of We're An American Band. The drummere was still crazy for them. Go figure.

I can't believe I'm about to defend Grand Funk, but I can't find anything wrong with this song from "The Red Album", or their second, released in December 1969, and considered one of their most rockin'. I haven't heard it since I was 14. Great riff and arrangement.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpTsyTGH8Cc

Defending Grand Funk? Wouldn't dream of it. Apart from the uncharacteristically mellow AND melodic "Bad Time" (which someone else also mentioned here earlier), it's an utter and complete dross. However, there are/were way worse things out there. Pink Floyd, to name but one. To be continued...

Turn on your radio today. Then listen to Grand Funk. Sorry. GF is far superior.

How were they any different than Kiss, really, excepting the makeup and costumes? Simple songs with lunkhead lyrics played by serviceable musicians. It ain't "Waterloo Sunset," but it ain't that bad, either.

And I'm not even much of a GF fan. Although Shriner is dead on about "Bad Time." What a great little pop song.

Not generally a fan of GFR, having been forced to grab the ass of the person in front of me too many times at weddings whilst doing GFR's wholly unnecessary version of "The Locomotion". (Rule of thumb [or ass, as it were]: Any ass publicly available is usually an ass you'd rather not latch onto. But I digress....)

The thought of GFR and Frampton together is almost too much to bear. Disaster narrowly averted.

Steve: do you remember that when one of us was about to do something tasteless, obnoxious, or in any way over-the-top, the way we would signal what was coming to the rest of the band was to shout "Grand Funk!"??

BTW:I think I was at that concert with you, and you're right. At least they opened. In darker days, they might have been the headliner over those bands.

Everyone in my junior high loved Grand Funk and Led Zep...except for me. It pushed me more into the glitter stuff; T Rex, The Sweet, which I was lucky enough to hear because WHFS FM was completely free form at that time and they would play glitter occasionally. Glitter was more of an underground thing here, as was Roxy Music (I liked their rockers, but not their slow stuff).

Not a big 3-piece GFR fan back in the day, but I've come to enjoy some of their stuff, especially the E Pluribus Funk elpee (How can you go wrong with that name?) (or that cover?)

But that's not what I wanted to talk about. I've never heard a good cover of Gimme Shelter. In my humble etc., that's because the original is a great RECORD rather than a great song. The song is just ok - mostly one chord and a lotta apocalyptic nattering. The record, on the other hand, is fucking brilliant - from Keith's tremolo-drenched guitar to the razor-sharp rhythm section to Mick & Merry's battling-in-harmony vocals, to the amazing spot (on the word "murder") where Ms. Clayton's voice enters another universe entirely. There's no way that MarkDon&Mel (or anyone) could ever beat that.

I guess I'm hopeless too...I always liked GFR even though I realized that weren't technically that great. It's too bad they never had a proper producer, going from Terry Knight, who's probably responsible for the way this sounds, to Todd Rundgren who took them in a new direction (for better or worse)...never thought much of Todd, way over-rated if you ask me. His song "bang the drum all day" makes me want to go out and harm small children more than this song does....so go ahead and be cranky and keep listening to "call me maybe" and I'll stick with GFR any day...

I attended one of the less-legendary Hyde Park concerts in London, in 1971 ... the bill was Heads Hands & Feet, Humble Pie, and GFR as headliners. The huge crowd was polite to Heads Hands & Feet, rocked out with Humble Pie, and got up as one and left the park in droves once GFR took the stage. I thought that fairly eloquent at the time...